I'm Not Nami
by HMAWLover
Summary: Skye has lived most of her life under the label of her mother, Nami and hungers for the day when someone will recognize her for herself and not her mother. When she returns to Forget-Me-Not Valley, she discovers that a little Nami can go a long way.
1. Chapter 1

**I'm Not Nami**

**By HMAWLover**

_Author's Note-_Finally, what started out as a little spark in my head is finally going down on paper! This story is and has been a long time coming. I first got the initial idea for this Harvest Moon fic months ago and after tweaking it around a bit (not to mention weeks and weeks of jotting down ideas and prewriting!), this final product came out (after, of course, days of revisions)! Of course, an author's biggest form of accomplishment is positive feedback. While I hope that any reviews I may receive are praise, I accept constructive criticism greatly (No flames, please. I hope you all know by now that flames _never _stop a writer from writing or a reader from reading.). Well, I'm sure most of you have skipped over this message to get on with reading the story itself, so I will conclude this message here. I would love to hear what you guys think, so please enjoy!

Chapter 1

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_

Rock rolled over lazily in his bed and covered his head with his pillow. Damn this weather! Thunder strong enough to shake a building and lightning bright enough to illuminate the sky as the sun does from day to day combined with one nasty hangover that has overstayed its welcome is enough to make anyone disgruntled, but for Rock, the most intolerant person in the world, it is just plain excruciating. Okay, perhaps he should not have spent the previous night at the Blue Bar tossing back shots of moon trips like it was nobody's business, but what else was he supposed to do on a lazy day like that was?

_Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!_

The sharp batters were more rapid, and it took Rock a minute to figure out that it was not the thunder; somebody was pounding on the front door. Why did they not just come in? Rock scratched his head as if he was digging through his brain like a card catalogue in a library to figure out the answer. Oh yeah; Ruby, his mother, had instructed him to keep the doors of the Inner Inn locked at night while she and her husband, Tim, were Goddess knows where; Rock could not quite remember where they had trekked off to. Like _anyone _would break into the inn in the first place! Sure, the things that Tim and Ruby had been collecting over a period of years, even decades, were valuable, but no one in Forget-Me-Not Valley would _dare _steal them; and who would travel all the way to their end of the globe just to rob an inn that has not seen business in years?

"The only thing Mom would have to worry about is someone trying to find her secret recipe for her prize winning curry," he thought to himself with a chuckle as he tried not to stumble down the wooden staircase. He smile widened at the thought of Ruby chasing Murrey, the town beggar, down the street with her rusting frying pan after he had tried to steal some of that curry for his dinner. Still, Ruby's heart was too big to punish him for that, and she ended up serving him an eight course meal that night, the most he had eaten in probably years.

Rock's smile faltered, however, when the thumping on the door had started again, making his head feel as if an axe was splitting it in half. Without checking through the peep hole to make sure that (Goddess forbid) a rapacious thief was not waiting outside to steal some of Ruby's Tomatoma soup, he swung the door open.

"Yeah what the hell…" his voice trailed off when his brain finally registered who was standing before him. "…is it."

A pale but flawless complexion; an elongated and sinewy figure; most of all, the baby blue eyes that could pierce through your soul in a single heartbeat like a vulture punctures through its prey; the only thing that was missing was the signature bob of shaggy red hair that almost completely concealed her face. No, this was not Nami, but it was the closest thing to her Even if one had not met her, they would know who she was right away. Anyone whose lives were graced by Nami would know her daughter instantaneously.

"Skye," Rock breathed as loud as it could have at that point.

"Uncle Rock," the teenager whimpered in a feeble voice, much weaker than what Rock had remembered. Her ghostly white face was streaked with black lines of mascara, either from the rain or from tears. No, she had definitely been crying; her blotchy, red eyes had given that all away. With that, she fell into Rock's open (and quite fatigued) arms, weeping openly into his chest.

Rock gently rubbed the girl's back as he held her doused, trembling body against his. Damn, he has not seen Skye for twelve—no thirteen years. Yes, thirteen because she had to be sixteen now. He was surprised that he could still recognize her; she had grown up so much! Her hair, once sun-golden that flowed like silk to her waist, was chopped hastily to her shoulder blades and dyed a dark coffee color; and was that a piercing she had in her nose? Nonetheless, the delicate features that she had inherited from Nami still shone through like how the stars ignited the sea on a beautiful summer's night. Frankly, she was the spitting image of her mother minus Nami's icon red hair.

After what seemed like forever, Rock pulled the girl away from him. "Let's get you inside," he whispered tenderly guiding the adolescent out of the raging monster outside that was the hurricane of the summer and into the enticing, inviting warmth that was the Inner Inn. Soundlessly, he led her into the dimly light kitchen, where the familiar scent of Ruby's cooking lingered. Rock only left her side to tiptoe into his parents' room to get one of his mother's patchwork quilts to envelop around her quivering shoulders. It was only after he set a bowl of Ruby's yam soup that he had heated up hastily over the fire in front of her did he finally speak again.

"How did you get here, Skye?"

Skye inwardly sighed; she knew that Rock would ask her that blunt question soon, and she was finding it hard to put off giving the already overdue reply. After a moment of churning her soup in slow, haunting whirlpool motions with her spoon, she murmured to the table, "Mom and I had a fight."

Did she dare look up to see Rock's reaction? One thing she knew for sure in her life was to avoid eye contact in situations like these. That was _one _bit of knowledge that she was glad she learned from her mother's side of the family; and there was not much to compare _that _half of the family tree to considering that she (and Nami, for that matter) did not really know who her father was. When Rock gave no immediate reply, she slowly lifted her eyes up from her food to Rock. His already wide eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of their sockets, and his lighting-colored hair was almost standing on end.

"And she _let _you run away to here?" he spat out in disbelief. Sure, Nami has made her share of mistakes in the past (and of course, Rock would be the first to admit that), but this was ridiculous.

"Goddess, Rock, you make her sound as stupid as you; maybe more," Skye snapped, her charity case act instantly dropped. "No, of course she doesn't know I'm here. She would have gotten here before me to bring me home if she'd have known that I was coming your way. No, she probably thinks that I'm staying at my boyfriend's house again—uh, make that _ex-_boyfriend."

There it was: the witty, caustic remarks that made Rock feel as if he were talking to Nami instead of her daughter. Yes, this was same old Skye; even at the age of three, her words had always had a way of scathing people to nothing. Rock simply shook off the biting reply; he was used to it after two generations. He was about to question her further when a thought came to his head; Nami needed to know that she was safe.

He got up from the table and started pacing around the kitchen, thinking about the best way to contact his surrogate sister when the annoying but frank fact came to his head that Nami's horizons were bigger than the sky, and she could be anywhere. Alternatively, he ripped a piece of paper from one of Ruby's notepads and started to scribble a note to be delivered to Tim and Ruby the next morning.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Skye was suddenly peering over Rock's shoulder, casting a faint shadow over his workspace.

"Uh, what do you think?" Rock answered, not bothering to look up from his letter. "I'm writing a letter to my parents telling them to get out of wherever they are at the moment and to get their asses back here so we can figure out what to do with you!"

"Over my dead body!" With one sweeping motion, Skye plucked the piece of paper and notepad from Rock's hands and tossed them into the fire, satisfied as they withered to ashes.

"What in Goddess name was that about?"

Skye shrugged innocently and turned back to Rock. "Let's just say that Tim and Ruby aren't on the top of the list of people I want to see at the moment."

Yes, this _was _same old Skye: not only was she sarcastic, but she was as stubborn as a mule.

"Okay, this makes a lot of sense," Rock mused with a pleasant smile. "Let's recap: you don't want to see Tim and Ruby _at all, _yet you just _happen _to show up at _their _inn to see me with the danger of them seeing you. Yeah, that's really smart!"

"Will you just shut up? I'm not _that _dumb, Rock! Goddess, even _you're _smarter than that! No, I got here a few nights ago, actually, and hid out in the forest. I overheard you telling Lumina that Tim and Ruby were going out for a few days to some cooking convention—"

"_That's _where they were going!" Rock snapped his fingers proudly in remembrance.

"—and I just waited until they left yesterday morning. I would have dropped in sooner, but there was that small problem that you were as drunk as…uh, no comment, but I didn't want to have to deal with _that _at the present time. Hung over, I can deal with—how is your head feeling by the way?—but _drunk? _No, that's a whole different story."

_Smart. _Skye is also smart, Rock evoked. She was the only kid in Forget-Me-Not Valley that Rock was unable to fool with his "magic tricks" that he just performed to show off to the girls. And _no _girl would want to go out with him after Skye exploited his ruse of having Daryl lend his scientific knowledge to help him pull off one of the hardest tricks in the book: making someone disappear.

"Anyway, you and Lumina make a really cute couple," Skye continued walking around the room as if she were taking a casual stroll down memory lane. "My, things can change in thirteen years, even in Forget-Me-Not Valley. I remember you used to be after…what was her name? Muzzy?"

"Muffy."

"Muffy! That's right; that blonde chick that worked at the Blue Bar!" She fingered her own golden locks at that statement. "I always wanted her hair. Anyway, did you and Muffy ever go out?"

"Yeah, I think you can find old court records from our divorce that can tell you everything." Rock slid sullenly into a chair and buried his face in his hands. There were some things about his life that he did not want to discuss now with his niece, and his rocky marriage (if you can call what they had a marriage) was _definitely _one of them.

Skye pivoted as fast as lightning to face Rock. "No way? Marriage? I—" She snapped her fingers. "That's right! I remember Ruby writing to Mom about that, like, five years ago!"

Rock's face slowly rose out of his hands. "Really? And what did Nami say?"

"'That's what happens when you're drunk.'"

"Look, it was just a mistake!"

"Oh, so you're not denying it! You and Muffy got married drunk!" Rock watched in annoyance as Skye bent in half hysterically laughing. "Oh my Goddess! _Why _didn't I come back here sooner?" This was deliciously great. Forget-Me-Not Valley had _finally _done something to Skye; when was the last time that she had laughed this hard?

"Skye, can we please not talk about this now?"

"No, please, I haven't laughed this hard in _forever!_" After taking a few deep breaths, Skye finally seemed to calm down. "The only thing that can make me pass out from lack of air now is if you tell me that Muffy popped out one of your kids!"

Rock sighed heavily. "Kirby was the only thing that Muffy and I did right," he muttered.

Skye's eyes suddenly burst open; no, she was not going to laugh. How could Rock have—no, she would have heard about it, wouldn't she? Still, Nami had a way of keeping important news from her. She gently sat down next to Rock and placed her clammy hand on his shoulder. "Kirby is your—?"

"Daughter. She's nearly five years old." Rock's eyes glistened with pride. "I'm so lucky to have such a great girl like her."

Skye smiled warmly. "I wish I knew about her when she was born. I mean, she'd be like a cousin to me, wouldn't she? I want to meet her."

Rock put his arm around the teenager and gave her a tight squeeze. "You will. You will soon enough; but you need to meet two other people first, and they are Tim and Ruby."

"No!" Skye pulled away from Rock and practically leapt to the other side of the room. "Rock, I can't. They'll only make me go back with Mom, and I can't deal with her anymore! Why did you think that I hid out in the forest all of those days?"

"We need to talk about that too. What were you thinking? You could have gotten hurt or worse pulling a stunt like that!"

"Oh, come on. Forget-Me-Not Valley may be crawling with a bunch of weirdoes, but they're not all serial killers. You should know that, Rock. I'm surprised you haven't moved out of here yet."

"Don't change the subject! My parents, not to mention your mother, would kill me if they knew that I knew you are here? And what are you going to do when Tim and Ruby come home in a few days?"

"Well, I'll be long gone by then."

"No you won't!" Rock quickly stood up and took Skye by the shoulders as if she were going to dash out of the inn any moment now. "No, you're not going anywhere. Whether my parents know or not, you're staying _here._"

"What? No, you can't do that!" Skye protested trying to wriggle out of Rock's grasp. "Forget-Me-Not Valley is like a prison to me! The only thing that Mom ever did right for me is get me the hell out of here!"

"Well, you should have thought of that before you decided to run away here."

Rock had finally let go and wondered off to the other side of the kitchen, lost in thought.

"Goddess, since when were you so uptight about everything. I thought you were the _cool _uncle."

"I'll be cool again when we know for sure that you're safe."

"Fine."

"Then you'll stay here?"

"At least for tonight. Do you know how hard it is to sleep out in those woods?"

"Actually I do. Ruby kicked me out this one night when Van needed a place to stay, and that's the only place I could go." Skye turned to him with confusion written all over his face. "Van is that fat merchant who comes here all the time," he replied to her puzzled expression.

"Oh, _him! _Yeah, Mom and I used to make jokes about him all the time. It was fun—" She suddenly stopped and yawned. "I guess I'll go to bed, but uh…where am I…?"

Rock chuckled. "Your old room: upstairs and to the left. I think some of Nami's old stuff is still up there if you want something to change into unless you want to wear something of Ruby's."

"Right. Uh, good night, I guess, and don't worry; I will be here tomorrow as long as you heat up more of Ruby's _irresistible _cooking. I can't believe I spent thirteen years away from that!" She started out of the kitchen but stopped and turned around. "Are you coming?"

"Not at the moment. I need some time to think. No, I will not tell Tim and Ruby you're here; not yet," he added hastily in response to Skye's scowl.

"Thank you, Rock. For the record, you're the cool uncle again."

"That means so much to me," he said with a knowing smile.

It was one of those grins that bothered Skye so much as if he were keeping some deep, dark secret from her. "What?" she snapped after a moment of waiting for Rock to say something more.

"It's nothing. Just…when we were talking before, it kind of reminded me about how Nami and I used to talk."

Skye's scowl turned to an air of exasperation after hearing those words; the words that she knew that every resident of Forget-Me-Not Valley would say in some shape or form if they saw her right now. "Look, I'll be anyone you want me to be," she responded in a robotic tone; she had answered this too many times, "but I am definitely not Nami."

With that, she strode out of the kitchen.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

_Nami wearily pushed through the door of the Inner Inn. Since when has a simple walk from Mineral Town been this strenuous? With every step she took, she could feel all of the fortitude in her slowly deteriorating, and going hand in hand with that, her personality was weakening as well; all with two words that the doctor had told her that morning._

_"Hey, you might want to wipe your feet before you come any farther," a jovial voice called. Nami looked up tiredly to catch a glimpse of Rock sliding down the banister, something that Ruby absolutely hated, which was all the reason that Rock did it. "Mom is on a cleaning spree today. She and Dad got into a fight, and she likes to give the inn a good scrub-down when she's stressed."_

_"Whatever cleaning quandary Ruby is in right now, I can assure you that mine is a million times worse!" Nami snapped, almost hysterical. She collapsed onto the counter, leaning over it as if she was in some physical pain. Of course, she knew that Rock would try to play Goddess in this situation, and a minute later, he was standing over her and patting her awkwardly on the shoulder. "As if that would make this any easier," Nami thought to herself._

_"What's wrong?" he asked tentatively. He knew that at any given word, Nami could rip him apart limb from limb (physically and mentally) from whatever distress she was in. "Come on, you can tell me. We tell each other everything."_

_"You know, Rock? I don't think your expertise can help me handle this," Nami groaned from below him. "You don't really have to deal with responsibilities, and you've lived your entire life being spoon-fed by the safe barriers of Forget-Me-Not Valley. You have no idea what it is like dealing with all of this crap! Look, I know it's a little harsh, but it's true, and I honestly need to deal with this on my own, so if you don't mind—"_

_As if she had suddenly gotten all of her strength back, she pushed herself off of the counter (sending Rock to topple into one of Tim's collectible totem poles) and attempted to make her way upstairs to the confinement of her room, only to be stopped by Rock._

_"You need someone to talk to," Rock said, his tone catching Nami off guard. All lightness and levity was gone from his voice and was replaced by somberness and solemnity. "I can tell that this is really bothering you; I know you too well to say that it's just some trivial dilemma that will go away tomorrow."_

_"You don't get it," Nami sighed impatiently, still refusing to turn and face Rock. "Nobody could help me through this; I have to sort this out by—"_

_"Yourself?" Rock finished for her. "You're not by yourself anymore, Nami. You were when you came here last winter looking for a place to stay for the night, but you aren't anymore. You have a family in Forget-Me-Not Valley. You have a family in this building, and we all need you! You're my sister, even if we don't share DNA; we are related in all the ways that count, and you can't go through whatever it is alone."_

_Nami did not know what it was, but something in Rock's touching (but somewhat scary considering that words like that have never left Rock's mouth) speech convinced her to turn around. Rock stared into her usually stone-cold pale blue eyes; the frost that made them seem so fierce and intimidating seemed to have thawed, and for once in her life, Nami actually looked anxious and scared. "I'm…I'm pregnant," she finally whispered in a hollow voice, and literally a split second later, she had fallen into Rock's arms._

_This was why Nami was so upset! Her whole life, she was used to being independent and alone. Although she had been staying in Forget-Me-Not Valley for a year or so, she was still uncomfortable with calling it home, and no one knew that more than Rock From Nami's perspective, a baby was not a blessing but not so much of a curse either; it was a titanic bomb of responsibility and commitment that had been unexpectedly dropped on her as a result of an accident…_

_So many unanswered questions flooded into Rock's mind that he felt that they were going to come streaming out of his ears. How could Nami be pregnant? Since when did she have a relationship with the men in Forget-Me-Not Valley or anywhere at least? Of course that led to: who was the father?_

_"You're still not alone," Rock whispered, but there was hardly anything more that he could say at this point except to ramble. "You still have me and Tim and Ruby and the fa—damn, forget I said that."_

_"You were going to say the father of the baby, didn't you?" Nami replied somewhat coolly, her voice congested. "Don't fool around with me, Rock. I know you're dying to find out who it is. I am too, but I have no idea who it is and no idea where to start looking for him."_

Throughout so many memories, blissful or painful, Rock was proud of Nami for raising such an amazing teenaged girl. Okay, so the mother and daughter twosome had their share of mishaps; all families do at one point although it might not be as severe as Nami and Skye's were. Still, Nami had taught her daughter one thing that was proven when Skye had shown up at the Inner Inn the previous night, whether it was conscious or not: she had taught Skye that Forget-Me-Not Valley was their home. Home _was _where the heart is, and after years of doubt, Rock knew that Nami left her heart here when she and Skye left thirteen years ago.

Now, everything was a mess, including Rock's physical state as a result of not getting a wink on sleep that night. It was now two o'clock in the afternoon, and he had not stirred from his position at the kitchen table. His jumbled thoughts in his head had not budged either as he was still unsure about what to do with his niece. Would Nami understand that he was keeping her location a secret for a few days, a week at the most? Maybe the lapse of contact would give them both time to cool off a little bit. Nevertheless, Rock got that uncomfortable feeling that _someone _should know about Skye's whereabouts, which made him want to ask someone who was going into town that day to send for Tim and Ruby at wherever the hell they were. So many choices, so little time; what _should _he do?

"Good morning!" Rock turned with a start to see Skye stroll amiably into the kitchen. Rock was impressed: her greasy hair seemed neat and clean and was pulled into a tidy ponytail. Her face seemed flawless and glowing. Her mood, most of all, had made an immense improvement; it was funny to see what a few extra hours of sleep could do.

"Good _afternoon,_" Rock corrected gesturing for the teenager to sit next to him.

"Huh, no kidding," Skye replied, not letting this phase her much. "No wonder I feel so invigorated. I haven't gotten that much sleep in _weeks. _Mom would always wake me up before the sun would even rise, and when I was hiding in the forest, I couldn't get much sleep because I would always have to watch in case people saw me."

"We still have to talk about you hiding in the forest," Rock interrupted sternly, "and we _will _sooner or later."

"I prefer later," Skye responded artlessly.

"You, uh, _look _better," Rock went on looking her up and down as if searching for an imperfection in her appearance.

"Yeah, I took a shower. It's hard looking and feeling like shit from day to day, you know what I mean?"

"I'm surprised you could even _survive _taking a shower in your bathroom. It has lousy water pressure, and Tim doesn't even bother to fix it considering that we haven't seen a guest since you and Nami left."

"I know. That's why I used your shower."

First she starts ordering him around to keep her whereabouts a secret from her mother (and basically everyone that she knows in Forget-Me-Not Valley), and now she was using his shower?

"When did I ever tell you that you can take a shower in my bathroom?" he asked as patiently as he could. Now he felt like he was speaking to a five year old.

"When did you tell me that I couldn't?" Skye shot back in a sweet voice. "Oh, well. I already took one, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. Don't worry, I used the little bottles of shampoo that Ruby needs for the guests. I don't like your color-treated crap. I don't know what you are trying to hide: your natural color or just the gray that could be popping up around those roots." Just to be sure, she stretched to get a good look at the top of his head.

Rock was about to retort to that comment, but he decided not to. This situation was complicated enough, and he did not have to argue with his niece the whole time and turn it into a babysitting job.

"Is that an old dress of Nami's?" he continued eyeing her attire. He already knew the answer to that question. There was no _way _that Nami would wear a flowered sundress.

"Hell, no. Did you actually think my mother would be seen wearing this? Judging by the looks of it, though, I'd say that Muffy left it here." She held her hand to her heart and sighed ecstatically. "It's great to know that your excuse of a marriage with her is gone…but not forgotten." You giggled but stopped hurriedly when she saw Rock glare at her in disapproval. "Sorry," she muttered looking down at her feet.

Rock exhaled all of the air that he was going to use to yell at Skye, and immediately, he felt some of the tension inside of him loosen. Maybe he ought to thank Lumina for teaching him those calming techniques.

"My marriage to Muffy is a thing of the past," he explained emotionlessly. "The only thing left of it is Kirby."

"Speaking of which, I want to meet her soon!" Skye's face genuinely lit up. The expression written on her face was not the excitement that she had when she was going to make a stinging remark to someone. Rock could tell that she sincerely wanted to meet his daughter. When had he seen that look on her face before? Oh yes; it was when she was living in Forget-Me-Not Valley thirteen years ago playing with her friends and enjoying her life.

"You will, soon, I promise," he answered, not really knowing when "soon" would be, "but I meant what I said last night. Before you go out meeting anyone within this valley or not, you talk to Tim and Ruby…unless you'd rather rejoin your mother in Goddess knows where."

"No." The animated smile vanished from Skye's face, and the obduracy returned. "Either way, I still go back with my mom, and I do _not _want to. You wouldn't want me to either if you knew what we were fighting about."

Aha! Finally, Rock was getting somewhere.

"And what _were _you fighting about?" he pressed trying to get more information out of her. He knew that the key to the mother and daughter reconciliation was to address the problem they were having, major or minor (though he greatly suspected major given that she had gone to such extremes to get to Forget-Me-Not Valley).

Unfortunately, Skye had seen right through him. "Nice try, but I'm not fessin' up to that. It's none of your business, and besides, it's in the past, and I'm away from my mom."

"Still as stubborn as a mule and conniving as a fox," Rock groaned inwardly. It was time to make new conversation before he woke up the next morning to discover that Skye had run off somewhere. "So, when you were hiding in the forest, did you recognize anyone?" he asked hesitantly. A sly beam emerged on the teenager's face instantaneously at that question.

"Of course. Come on, Rock, you know I'm a great spy."

"If you were referring to that time years ago when Flora and I—it was just a one-time thing, okay, and you're lucky I didn't tell Nami about that."

"Whatevs. Anyway, no one seems to have changed here. I mean, yeah, some people have gotten older, but I could identify everyone okay."

"Who did you see?"

"Let's see." Skye counted all of the residents on her fingers as she spoke. "I saw Celia a lot. I remember her always hanging out up there. I used to help her pick flowers around the spring. I saw Kate a few times; dude, she used to be the tomboy of the group when we were little! Lumina, of course, because she was always hanging out with you, and—oh my god! Hugh is sooo hot! I mean, I used to have a crush on him when we were little, but I didn't know what I was in for—"

"You're out of luck because Hugh likes Kate," Rock added with a sad smile.

"Oh, well, I've always known that the two of them would end up together." Skye seemed to shake that one off very quickly. "Anyway, where's Nina? Out of everyone, I'd thought I'd see her."

"Damn, she doesn't know," Rock thought. Nina had gotten sick right after Nami and Skye had left town. Skye was always close to Nina. Well, Goddess knows that all the kids were. She was the valley's grandmother! When Samantha, Grant, and Kate were having their house built, Rock remembered when she insisted that they stay with her and Galen even though their house was not that big. Forget-Me-Not Valley was not quite the same when Nina died, and every resident still mourned her to this day.

"Skye…I don't know how to tell you this, but…Nina died."

The smile slowly faded off of Skye's face. "W-what?"

"Shortly after you and Nami left, she got really sick, and she was just too weak."

Skye did not know what to feel. No, she was not going to cry. She felt too emotionally tapped out to cry after her brief breakdown last night. Still, she felt some painful pit in her stomach that she knew would not go away for a long time. How could Nina be dead? That made as much sense as the moon colliding with the sun; it just could not happen. Skye knew that Nina was getting old, but she did not seem like she was going to croak anytime soon.

"Are you okay?" Rock slowly shifted in his seat to get in a good position to hug Skye but thought better of it.

"Yeah…it's just—"

"Unbelievable, I know. For a long time afterwards, people kept mentioning that they had to drop in and see her, forgetting that she was…" His voice trailed off as if the memory was too painful to relive.

"Poor Galen," Skye added, which seemed to bring a sense of finality to that conversation. After sitting awkwardly in silence for a few moments, she cleared her throat to change the subject, but before she could do so, Rock jumped up, nearly knocking over Skye in the process.

"I've got to go," he said in a hurried voice. "Today is my afternoon to spend with Kirby, and I have to pick her up in a few minutes." He looked as if he were about to run out the door but stopped and turned to look at Skye. "Shoot." What was he going to do now? If he left Skye alone, there was at least a sixty percent chance that she was going to do something stupid whether intentional or not.

"You're not my babysitter," she groaned as if reading his mind. "I know that although you live basically two yards away from your daughter, your time together is precious. Go ahead. I'm not going anywhere."

Rock got to her eye level and locked his eyes onto hers. "I swear you have to behave and not do anything stupid. This is already complex enough without one of us screwing up even more."

"I'll stay in my room the whole time if you want. You just go and have fun and forget that I am here for a few hours. It will do you some good, I'm sure."

"I'm going to put a 'closed' sign on the inn and lock the door. I'm the only one that has the key. You don't unlock that door to _anyone, _and I mean any—"

"Rock." She took her uncle's hand and squeezed it. "Go spend time with your daughter."

Finally, Rock's face eased into a grin. "Thanks," he said quietly. "I'll be in town going out to eat. I'll be back around six, okay?" After giving her another stare down, he spoke again. "You know, you're so compassionate, even if you don't show it. You really are like—"

"Don't say it." This comparison was tiring after the first time, but now the second? It was just ridiculous.

Rock laughed. "Okay, you win, but you can't stop me from thinking it." With that, he left the Inner Inn.

* * *

Skye was bored out of her mind, and tossing and turning was not keeping her occupied.

For the hours between when Rock left and when he went to bed at eleven, she had engrossed herself with exploring the exotic art that Tim and Ruby had collected for most of their lives and reintroducing herself to them, but even pieces with so much history (and she would know because she had to sit through a few of Tim's accounts when she was younger) could not keep her absorbed forever. To be frank, the air in the Inner Inn was getting a bit stuffy for her taste, and the only cure for that was to go outside and breathe some fresh air.

"Rock won't notice if you step out for a few minutes," she told herself. "You can just take a walk around the back of town. Nobody is ever there at this time of night. The people who live back there are usually tossing back Stone Oils at the Blue Bar by now."

However, something else was holding her back. "Rock has done so much for you the past day. It wouldn't do much to repay him if you risked someone seeing you. Word would eventually get to Tim and Ruby, not to mention Mom who would skin him alive. Plus, Rock is trusting that you will do everything he says, and you'd be betraying that."

Still, the urge to be released, at least temporarily, from her makeshift prison outweighed her guilt, and she decided that a brief stroll to the beach and back would not do any harm. Besides, Rock was a heavy sleeper most of the time, and he would be oblivious if she had walked to the other end of the world and back. Quietly opening the door so the wood would not creak, she tiptoed out of the bedroom as silent as a mouse, down the stairs, and (after what seemed like an eternity of checking for people passing by) out of the inn.

Oh, how great it felt to finally inhale crisp, salubrious air! Not that the scents of Ruby's cooking were not refreshing, but taking a step after spending nearly twenty-four hours cooped up in the Inner Inn was revitalizing. After taking it all in for a moment, she decided to head towards the beach, somewhere where she knew would be deserted at this time of night.

For the first time in awhile, silence was not deafening. It was actually peaceful, the way it was supposed to be. The waves purred soothingly lit up by twinkling stars that glittered the sky the diamonds. This was one thing that Skye remembered about Forget-Me-Not Valley that really stood out; serene nights on the beach that gave the mind a cleansing sense of tranquility. It was one of the things (if any other) that she and Nami actually bonded over.

_"Look, Skye!" Nami lifted her toddler daughter and pointed up to the horizon, which was glowing a deep crimson. "I think the first stars are about to appear. As if on cue, a star, which nearly matched the color of the sky, flickered into view. "There's Forget-Me-Not Valley's sign of a Goddess-blessed summer: the red star. If you ever need help or guidance, you just stand on the beach and look for that red star, and it will guide your way."_

At the recalling of the memory, a star with a ruby hue came into Skye's sight. "I see the red star, Mom," she whispered, almost scornfully, "but I can't find any guidance."

Suddenly, a faint resonance caught Skye's attention; it sounded like a guitar. Skye had always liked the guitar. Something about the tone of the songs that echoed out of it was just so consoling and unruffled. Nami had always promised to let her take lessons, but they never stayed anywhere long enough to start taking them.

As if hypnotized by the melodious tune, Skye started to pursue it, not exactly knowing where it would take her but not caring all the same; it carried somewhat familiarity to it, and she wanted to find it. That was how she went along: placidly sauntering after the refrain so daintily that it looked as if she were walking on clouds. All thoughts of being discovered or what Rock would say if he learned that she was out ceased; huh, Rock who? All she could concentrate on was that melody, so alluring that it was almost taunting. What enticed her so much, she did not know, but she had to unearth it.

"Hey, who are you?" a strange but proverbial voice abruptly called, rousing Skye from her captivated state. A tense sensation numbed her as if she was submerged in ice water for an hour. "Please, Goddess, don't let anyone recognize me!" Regrettably, Goddess was probably off doing something more important because her prayers were unheard. "Goddess! Nami, is that you?"

* * *

_Author's Note-_Chapter 1 was a challenge to finally get up and running, and I'm surprised that it only took me a week to satisfy myself with the product of Chapter 2! Thanks to all of you who read out there, and a big thanks to those of you who reviewed! 

Until next chapter,

HMAWLover


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